The Vertical Picturesque : Four Essays on Auckland Houses

The Vertical Picturesque takes the "form of a collection of biographies of the architects, short descriptive essays, and illustrations of four Auckland houses built in the 1960s and 1970s. The houses are all early works from a select group, with one each by Ian Burrow and Roger Walker, and two by Claude Megson.

The editors, Christoph Schnoor and Graeme McConchie, are senior academics at Unitec. "They have explored modernisms narrative in New Zealand to revisit these four houses, built (mostly) with modest budgets and ordinary materials, and all but one located in Auckland's less-fashionable suburbs (Megson's Wong House in Remuera is the exception). No glamorous island sites here: no unlimited funds and unpriceable sea views. These are real, but also utterly exceptional, houses."